From the Tide Pool to the Stars: Sailing with the Spirit of John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts on a New Journey of Discovery in the Sea of Cortez

SALEM, Va. -Roanoke College announces a lecture, titled “From the Tide Pool to the Stars: Sailing with the Spirit of John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts on a New Journey of Discovery in the Sea of Cortez,” by Jon Christensen to take place Tuesday, February 12 at 5:30 p.m. in the Colket Center's Wortmann Ballroom. The lecture is titled No tickets are required.

In 1940, John Steinbeck accompanied his friend, Ed “Doc” Ricketts, on a biological specimen collecting expedition to the Gulf of California. The trip grew into much more than a simple collecting foray. Steinbeck chronicled the expedition in his classic book, The Log from the Sea of Cortez. In 2004, Jon Christensen organized and led the Sea of Cortez Expedition and Education Project, which retraced the famous Steinbeck-Ricketts journey, and is the topic of his lecture.

Jon Christensen is in the history department at Stanford University where he is Associate Director of the Spatial History Project of the Bill Lane Center for the Study of the North American West. A specialist in the history of conservation, he also has been a freelance writer for nearly 20 years. His work has appeared in the New York Times, High Country News and many other newspapers, magazines, journals and radio and television shows.

Christensen's appearance is sponsored by the D.L. Jordan Endowment. For more information, contact Dar Jorgensen, (540) 375-2465 or jorgensen@roanoke.edu.